AMMAN — In the walled Old City of Israeli-occupied east Jerusalem,
Nora and Mustafa Sub Laban are counting down the last days before a court
decision that has hovered over them since 1978 is carried out, AFP reported.
اضافة اعلان
After decades of legal wrangling, they are set to be evicted
from their home in the Muslim Quarter to make way for Jewish settlers.
"These days, I'm like a prisoner waiting to be put to
death. I don't sleep like other people," Nora Sub Laban told AFP.
The east Jerusalem residents have been embroiled in a
45-year legal battle with authorities and Israeli settlers.
The settlers are part of an organization called Atara
Leyoshna and are represented by Eli Attal, according to both the Sub Laban
family and Ir Amim, an anti-settlement watchdog.
"These days, I'm like a prisoner waiting to be put to death. I don't sleep like other people.”
Attal declined to comment about the case when approached by
AFP.
The Israeli plaintiffs claim that Jews lived in the building
before the division of the holy city into Israeli and Jordanian sectors
following the proclamation of Israel in 1948.
They invoke an Israeli law from the 1970s that allows Jews
to reclaim property owned by Jews before 1948, even if they are not related.
The Sub Labans say they were designated "protected
tenants" by Jordan in the 1950s, before Israel captured east Jerusalem in
1967 and proceeded to annex it in a move regarded as illegal by the UN, AFP
reported.
Protected tenants
The family showed AFP a Jordanian rental contract dating
back to 1953, as well as Israeli court rulings recognizing their status as
"protected tenants".
Yet the courts said that the couple do not currently live
permanently in the building, so their "protected tenants" status no
longer applies and the eviction can go ahead.
Nora said the judgment refers to a period when she was not
living in the apartment daily because of a hospitalization.
"Legally speaking, within the Israeli system, nothing
more can be done," said Rafat Sub Laban, the couple's son and an employee
of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights in the West Bank city of Ramallah.
Israeli discriminatory laws
According to Ir Amim, some 150 Palestinian families in
Jerusalem's Old City and nearby neighborhoods are currently threatened with
eviction because of "discriminatory laws and state collusion with settler
organizations".
“I lived my childhood in this house, I grew up here, I lost my father and my mother here…
People think that a house is just walls, but it's also memories, it's my whole life.”
The group says such evictions are part of "a strategy
to cement Israeli hegemony of the Old City basin, the most religiously and
politically sensitive part of Jerusalem and a core issue of the conflict".
Over the years, settlers have opened several yeshivas —
Jewish seminaries — on the street where the Sub Laban family lives.
Their nearest Israeli neighbor lives just a few steps from
their home — they share a landing.
"We do not live in freedom and security," said
Nora.
Inside the apartment, photos have been taken down and
objects of sentimental value removed.
The Sub Labans know that when the police come, they will
have only a few moments to clear out their things.
"When unfortunately that happens, we will bring our
parents to my sister and me" in another neighbourhood of east Jerusalem,
their son Rafat said.
"It's the only option."
Messages scribbled on the wall in black marker by their
grandchildren are one of the few things left in the almost empty apartment.
"Palestine will be free", "We will
return", and "This is our home," they read.
"I lived my childhood in this house, I grew up here, I
lost my father and my mother here", said Nora Sub Laban.
"People think that a house is just walls, but it's also
memories, it's my whole life," the 68-year-old added.
"But (the settlers) don't care about that."
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